Estimates Show Wuhan Death Toll Far Higher Than Official Figure

[redleghunter]

As authorities lifted a two-month coronavirus lockdown in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, residents said they were growing increasingly skeptical that the figure of some 2,500 deaths in the city to date was accurate.

Since the start of the week, seven large funeral homes in Wuhan have been handing out the cremated remains of around 500 people to their families every day, suggesting that far more people died than ever made the official statistics.

"It can't be right ... because the incinerators have been working round the clock, so how can so few people have died?" an Wuhan resident surnamed Zhang told RFA on Friday.

"They started distributing ashes and starting interment ceremonies on
Monday," he said.

Seven funeral homes currently serve Wuhan -- a huge conurbation of three cities: Hankou, Wuchang and Hanyang.

Social media users have been doing some basic math to figure out their daily capacity, while the news website Caixin.com reported that 5,000 urns had been delivered by a supplier to the Hankou Funeral Home in one day alone -- double the official number of deaths.

Some social media posts have estimated that all seven funeral homes in Wuhan are handing out 3,500 urns every day in total.

More at the link: Estimates Show Wuhan Death Toll Far Higher Than Official Figure

 

[chevyontheriver]

As authorities lifted a two-month coronavirus lockdown in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, residents said they were growing increasingly skeptical that the figure of some 2,500 deaths in the city to date was accurate.

Since the start of the week, seven large funeral homes in Wuhan have been handing out the cremated remains of around 500 people to their families every day, suggesting that far more people died than ever made the official statistics.

"It can't be right ... because the incinerators have been working round the clock, so how can so few people have died?" an Wuhan resident surnamed Zhang told RFA on Friday.

"They started distributing ashes and starting interment ceremonies on
Monday," he said.

Seven funeral homes currently serve Wuhan -- a huge conurbation of three cities: Hankou, Wuchang and Hanyang.

Social media users have been doing some basic math to figure out their daily capacity, while the news website Caixin.com reported that 5,000 urns had been delivered by a supplier to the Hankou Funeral Home in one day alone -- double the official number of deaths.

Some social media posts have estimated that all seven funeral homes in Wuhan are handing out 3,500 urns every day in total.

More at the link: Estimates Show Wuhan Death Toll Far Higher Than Official Figure

Interesting.

And then there is that strange information about a decline in cell phone accounts AND landline accounts in China since December. That could be the result of different things, but one apparently not ruled out possibility is that a lot of people died in China. In a tightly closed society like China, where they lie and cover up AND have the means to make their cover-up stick, well, it's hard to know. We may never really know. Which leaves it to speculation on odd data points.

My hunch is that the Chinese Communist Party is probably in some real trouble, but one would have to be an expert tea leaf watcher to really know.

 

[Douger]

Seeing the place has been shut down for a few weeks it's no surprise that there's a backlog in funeral homes.
Surely you don't think that everyone who dies in Wuhan dies of coronavirus do you?

 

[redleghunter]

Seeing the place has been shut down for a few weeks it's no surprise that there's a backlog in funeral homes.
Surely you don't think that everyone who dies in Wuhan dies of coronavirus do you?

That’s a good point and seems to be the theme of the government propaganda.

So I guess we can surmise tens of thousands died of natural causes in a quarantined city which was quarantined too late. Perhaps it was lead poisoning.

I think one of the residents opined that tens of thousands in a short period of time just didn’t die.

 

[solid_core]

That’s a good point and seems to be the theme of the government propaganda.

So I guess we can surmise tens of thousands died of natural causes in a quarantined city which was quarantined too late. Perhaps it was lead poisoning.

I think one of the residents opined that tens of thousands in a short period of time just didn’t die.

For example in New York, 400 people die every day (because of cancer, being old, heart diseases etc.).
Its 12,000 people every month.

So if people report 40,000 deaths in Wuhan (with similar number of inhabitants as NY), 40,000 - 12,000 = 28,000 "more deaths than usual".

China says 2.500 people died because of coronavirus, so it makes sense they divided the real number by 10 and in reality it was 25,000 people.

 

[Douger]

That’s a good point and seems to be the theme of the government propaganda.

The data out of the Wuhan metro area coincides with what we've seen in other epidemic "hotspots" around the world. Seems unlikely to be "government propaganda" seeing how it was released weeks before other locations around the world experienced very similar statistics in their own epidemics.